WAR STORM (Red Queen 4// Alternate Version)

Chapter 48

Evangeline

"What?" she asks, looking around at the bunch of us. Cal's gone pale, probably from both Mare and her vulpine smile. Iris is barely holding herself back from flinging her body at the bars. Maven turns himself around so that he can face her. "Don't tell me you're surprised."

The shaft of moonlight reveals Mare well enough, everything from her slicked hair to that bloody coat of hers. But even I-somebody who's learned how to read the little lightning girl well-doesn't see anything behind her eyes. No fear, no soul. Just nothing, like a cold void of black.

"Mare-" Maven begins, but the lightning girl puts up a hand to silence him.

"I've always wondered," she says, daring further into the room, "when deprived of your abilities, do you grow cold?" Mare turns to face Cal, glancing at Maven occasionally. "Because I'm sure a Magnetron could die by a blade and a nymph could be drowned, so long as Silence is playing."

Cal presses his lips together. She isn't close enough for him to try anything, though I see his fingers twitch. Has he really gone that far off the cliff?

Either way, there is something very, very wrong with the girl.

"I see how it is. I betray you once and you're quiet. See how it feels? Does it hurt more than drowning in a thousand lifetimes, Tiberias? Does it hurt more than thinking about all the people you've ever loved dying in the worst possible way? Your own personal tortures?"

She turns towards me, but merely rolls her eyes. "Poor girl, dead mother, dead father. Your only family left is Ptolemus, the man who killed my brother. You've already lost two parents, I don't see any reason to keep him. Especially when so many, many people loathe him."

"You psychotic bitch," I whisper, looking up at her leering down on me from the floor. "Have you always been like this?" There are no words, no words for me whisper or scream at her that can express my rage, my utter fury. There's no point in threatening her, no threat that I can use that won't have her laughing at me, pointing out that there are steel bars separating us from any physical damage I may inflict.

Father taught Ptolemus and me how to torture people with our blades and words, how to make it last for weeks.

"And here we have Princess Iris," she says, walking from my cage with hands interlaced behind her back. The red jacket glistens in the moonlight, tinted purple now. "In love with a useless Sentinel, a nobody. I hear his family doesn't like him much anymore. So desperate for attention that she turns to Reds for friendship, not seeing anything clearly. Bart will probably leave-"

"Shut up," Iris swears, launching herself at the bars, her arms gracefully sliding between them, only for her hand to brush at Mare's shoulder. "I showed you my religion, I trusted you as much as my own sister. If anybody is desperate, it's you, befriending people you're bound to betray."

Mare blinks, as if resetting herself.

But she never gets the chance to sink her teeth into Iris for again.

"Don't listen to it, Iris. That's not Mare Barrow," Maven says. "Is it? Oh, no. You're somebody else entirely."

She whirls on her heel to look Maven straight on in the eye. He grins at her, proud of himself for whatever puzzle he thinks he cracked. The boy king stands up now, for the first time since we've been here. His fingers tap at the bars rhythmically, and he shakes his head slowly in some disappointment.

Though the passage is still shrouded in shadows, I see their figures well. Mare clenches her fists, coming back to that bad habit she's had ever since Corvium. Maven raises an eyebrow, waiting for a response. "I've heard so much about you. Never did think I'd have the tragedy of meeting you, though. I suppose it was inevitable."